Browsing: Naloxone

The opioid crisis has led health officials to search for new and innovative ways to save lives, with many state officials focusing on giving more people, including first responders and community members, access to a life-saving opioid antidote called naloxone.

More Americans are dying from opioids than at any time in recent history, with overdose deaths hitting a peak of 28,000 in 2014. That amounts to 78 Americans dying from an opioid overdose every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

North Carolina becomes the third state to provide unlimited access to a prescription drug that's already saved more than 2,000 people statewide who were overdosing on heroin, OxyContin or other opium-based drugs.

Gov. Pat McCrory will now have the ability to approve widespread access to a prescription drug already known to have reversed more than 2,000 overdoses of heroin or other opium-based drugs in North Carolina.